A man who was attacked by a black bear while walking his dogs survived only after crushing the creature's skull with a stick.

Jim West needed 60 stitches on his head and body to close wounds from the terrifying attack.

The 45 year old was out walking his dogs on Saturday in British Columbia, Canada, when, he said, he heard a grunt and turned around. Enlarge Ouch: Jim West displays the stitches and scars left in the back of his head from the mauling bear

Scarred: Jim West displays the wounds and stitches on his head from the bear's mauling. Below, he shows how he attacked the bearBattle of the fittest: Jim West demonstrates how he attacked the bear

'All I saw was eyes full of hatred,' he said afterwards.

'I had no option So I stuck my foot up and tried to kick her in the face.'

The bear responded by attacking him and knocking him to the ground.

'I rolled onto my stomach and clasped my hands at the back of my neck,' Mr West said.

'She tore into my skull at the back of my head, moved over and bit me on the left side of my body, on my ribs and left arm.'

But Mr West was not about to go down without a fight. Battling to his feet, he managed to grab a stick about as thick as his arm.

'I said, in effect, bring it on sweetie,' he said. 'I took one step forward  smash! I swung the stick and broke it over her head.

'She kind of stood there and shook it off, like she was stunned. I realised if I didn't continue the attack she would knock me to the ground again and I would not get up.

'I swung my piece of wood like a sledgehammer driving spikes and I kept swinging till she was lying flat on the ground and there was blood coming out of her nose.'

The 5ft 9in man eventually crushed the bear's skull with the stick, killing it. He then walked a mile to a local lodge, where he was transported to hospital.

Even conservation officers were shocked by the terrifying incident, saying they were surprised he had lived.

Sadly, the bear was the mother of two young cubs - who had to be euthanised because it was believed they would not survive the cruel Canadian winter without her.

Even so, he said, he did not regret what he had done - believing it had been necessary for him to survive.

I have to say this is totally fucking balls to the wall fucking hella awesome. Anyways, I think it was unnecessary to kill the cubs, couldn't they just give them to a zoo? Anyways, glad to see the guy is still alive.

Jim West was found dead in his single family home on Wednesday. He was recently in the news for killing a black bear which resulted in the bear's cubs being euthanised, which PETA responded by trying to force Public Prosecutors to charge the man for murder.

Update: A note linking the murder to ALF members, declared "the death penalty was finally upheld"...

I see your "Beat bear skull with stick man" and Raise you with "Kill bear with an arrow through the heart man"

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Perfect arrow shot saves lifeBy BRETT FRENCHOf The Gazette Staff

It was a one-in-a-million shot, but luckily for Ron J. Leming, his father accurately fired the arrow from his bow the one time it counted the most - as a 500-pound grizzly bear chased him downhill.

Ron J. and his father, Ron G. Leming, were archery hunting for elk up the South Fork of the Shoshone River in northwest Wyoming in mid-September, about 15 miles into the Washakie Wilderness from the trailhead. It's an area they are familiar with, having hunted there for the past 15 years.

For three days they'd bugled, cow-called and worked the woods, hoping to shoot a big bull. Fall is when elk breed. Big bulls bugle to challenge other bulls in hopes of breeding more cow elk. Hunters imitate the sounds in hopes of luring the testosterone-amped bulls into range.

The elder man, 62, had missed two shots on the two previous days. He has never shot an elk with his bow. But the father and son were calling in bulls, so when they left camp on horseback Sept. 12, hopes were high for success.

At about 9 a.m., their expectations were realized when Ron J. Leming, uphill from his father about 40 yards, lured a five-point bull toward his dad by alternately bugling like a bull and mewing like a cow elk looking for a mate.

The bull came within 40 yards of Leming's father, stopping where he couldn't get a clear shot, although he had his arrow nocked in the bow, ready to shoot. Then the elk backed off 30 more yards, out of range, and raked a small tree with its antlers for about 15 minutes in a show of force.

"I heard something behind me at one point and didn't see anything," Leming said. Previously, a smaller spike bull had crept in as he was calling, running off when it realized the ruse. So Leming wasn't too worried.

This time, though, something different happened. The bull elk that had been shredding the tree bolted away.

Leming stood up to walk down to his father when again he heard a sound behind him. Turning, he found himself 15 feet away from a full-grown, 11-year-old male grizzly. The Lemings often encounter bears in the backcountry. It's a huge area that ties into Yellowstone and Teton national parks and the Washakie Wilderness. Last year, a six-point bull elk that Leming shot had been partially consumed by a bear when he returned to pack it out.

"I hollered at him," Leming said. "I said, 'Get out of here.' He waited about a half-second, laid his ears back and came at me full speed."

Initially, Leming thought about hooking his bow release, a triggerlike device, onto his bowstring and taking a shot. But as he fumbled to hook the release, he quickly discarded that idea. He ran around a tree and sprinted downhill, the big bear hot on his tail.

"I couldn't believe it," Leming recalled. "We always talk about what we would do if we ran into a bear. But you never think it's going to happen to you."

Leming said he considered standing his ground, but there was no way he was going to drop and play dead. If he dropped, he said, he wasn't sure if the bear would maul him or just start eating him.

"I'm not going to lay there and let something eat on me," he said.

Leming, a fence builder, is no small fellow. At 37, he stands 6 feet tall and weighs 230 pounds.

As he blazed past his father, he saw an arrow fly within a foot of his leg.

"The bear was two feet behind me at that point," Leming said. "I just kept running. I made it three more steps and the bear knocked me down."

As he was falling, Leming pivoted onto his back. As the bear bore down on him, he fought back, throwing punches and kicking to keep the bear away from his head.

"I wouldn't have wanted to be on the other end of those," his father said. "He definitely fought for all he was worth. That kid's Ford tough."

But the bear seemed undeterred. Chomping down, the bear bit into Leming's right arm, just below the elbow.

"I couldn't believe the force," he said.

Somehow, Leming managed to get back up and tried to escape again, this time getting tangled in the branches between two trees as he ran. The bear attacked from behind, biting into his shoulder and then pulling him down. This time, the bear bit through his gloved left hand. At the same time, his father was beating the bear on the back with his bow.

"The bear took a couple of steps toward my dad, then he just slowly turned and walked away from us," Leming said. "Dad put another arrow in his bow, but he didn't want to shoot."

The grizzly staggered down the hill about 80 yards and fell over dead. With his first shot at the running bear, the elder Leming had likely nicked the bear's aorta, causing it to quickly bleed out.

"I was covered in blood," Leming said. "I didn't know if it was my blood or the bear's.

"My dad pretty much saved my life there," he said. "That's the thing I cannot believe in this whole story. He stood there with a bow and made that shot at a charging grizzly bear. That's amazing. You could take that shot a thousand more times and never do it."

"I'm just glad it ended the way it did," his father said "The only thing that went through my head was that bear was going to maul my boy.

"I just knew I had one shot. I never thought it would do what it did."

The elder Leming said he was exceptionally unruffled during the whole incident.

"I was just calm as can be, and I don't know why," he said.

He said he prays often. He prays for his family's safety. And that morning, before hunting, he prayed that God would guide his arrow, although he had a big bull elk in mind.

He figured the bear was about 10 feet from him when he shot, although he can't remember using the bow's sight to aim. He also had to wait until his son passed, so his target window was short and his target was moving.

"I knew I was going to hit him, but I didn't know where," the father said. "When you're in a situation like that, it all happens so fast."

According to Mark Bruscino, bear specialist for Wyoming Game and Fish Department who examined the fight site and the bear the following day, the bear was hit with the arrow in the upper right chest and the arrow continued horizontally into the bear's body.

"He's lucky the shot was as lethal as it was, because a wounded bear would've done more damage," Bruscino said. "He lost a large amount of blood in a short period of time."

Bruscino said the bear, which was in good condition, probably mistook the two for elk because they were calling. The two were also masking their scent with wafers that smell like cow elk urine.

"An adult male grizzly bear is fairly predacious," Bruscino said. "At this time of year, the bulls are vulnerable because they're caught up in the rut. They're distracted by the breeding season and the cows and drawn down a bit physically. And the bears probably figure that out and hunt them a little harder."

Bruscino said he's not one to criticize the actions of people involved in such encounters. He said it's possible that if Leming had held his ground, the bear might have recognized him as human. Bear spray is a good tool in such situations, he said, but whether or not Leming would have had time to deploy spray is questionable.

"Something the general public doesn't understand is these situations evolve quickly," Bruscino said.

Although the Lemings both had bear spray and pistols in camp, they had packed neither along on their morning hunt.

During and right after the attack, Leming said he felt no pain. It wasn't long, though, before he became cold and his vision started blurring.

"I was getting kind of nervous," he said.

Fearing he was going into shock, his father built a fire to warm him up. Taking off his left glove, Leming found the bite wound he didn't know he had. Since his shirt was tight to his right arm, figuring it was helping to staunch the flow of blood, the men didn't tend that wound. Eventually, he felt good enough that they took some pictures to document the scene.

Leming found out how bad his injuries were when he couldn't mount his horse for the two-mile ride back to camp. After walking back to camp, he was able to saddle up, and the hunters left their camp for the ride out to Cody and the hospital, stopping at Leming's house along the way to drop off the horses.

He'd called his wife to warn her, but Bridgett Leming was still shocked by the amount of blood that covered her husband. Their children, 5-year-old Jessie and 3-year-old Casey, were also "shook up" for a couple of days.

Leming spent only one night in the hospital. He received about 40 stitches to what were mostly puncture wounds, and no bones were broken. A month later, he feels pretty much back to normal and is looking forward to returning to the forest today to go to the same spot to rifle-hunt for elk.

"I think about it a lot," he said. "I feel like I'm going to be looking over my shoulder a lot more. But I'm not afraid to go back up there."

The elder Leming said his son's commitment to hunting, in spite of the mauling, is amazing.

"This is the kind of guy he is," Ron G. Leming said. As his son warmed up by the fire following the attack, he said to his father, "I hope it's not too bad, because I want to keep hunting."

A hunter is recovering after he was shot in the leg at close range by his dog, a spokesman with the Department of Natural Resources said. The hunter, James Harris, 37, of Tama, was hit in the calf Saturday, the opening day of pheasant season, said the spokesman, Alan Foster. He took between 100 to 120 pellets in about a four-inch circle to his calf, Mr. Foster said. Mr. Harris was hit when he put his gun on the ground to retrieve a bird, Mr. Foster said. The dog stepped on the gun and tripped the trigger when Mr. Harris was about three feet away. The dog was not injured.